Hollywood’s own ‘Top 100′ film list offers some surprises

Hollywood gets judged all the time, but now it appears the entertainment capital of the world is judging itself — and the results are a bit surprising.

The trade publication Hollywood Reporter has come up with a list of moviedom’s top 100 movies as selected by the industry itself. You’d expect if any industry were to do any navel gazing, the film world would do it long, deep and continuously.

This, however, is a rare glimpse into what Hollywood thinks. More than 2,100 in the business — including studio executives, directors, agents and even entertainment attorneys — were asked to list their favorite films of all time.

To film critics and industry associations such as the American Film Institute, some of the films that made the list will be right on the money. Many, though, will seem absurd and read more like a “People’s Choice” list than holy gospel.

At the top of the list is a choice that probably would surprise few: 1972′s classic, “The Godfather.” Francis Ford Coppola’s epic masterpiece about the Corleone crime family has been near or at the top of many all-time favorites list. Also near the top is Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane,” the 1941 film about a Hearst-esque publisher, which often gets the top spot, but places third here.

Which film was second? “Wizard of Oz,” which is somewhat of a stretch as it placed 10th on the AFI list. But it’s tops on “Rotten Tomatoes” and is listed third on Metacritic.

After that comes the head-scratching. Based on the results, you might think 1994 — not 1939 or 1974, deemed by many as flush with top-notch entries — was the best year for filmmaking given that Nos. 4 and 5 were released at that time, “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Pulp Fiction,” respectively. While those two modern classics can be found on most top 100 lists, they’re not usually on anyone’s top 10, much less top 5. (Clips of all top 5 films are scattered throughout this post.)

It’s also worth noting that both films ranked higher than the movie that got the Best Picture Oscar that year, “Forrest Gump.” “Gump” ended up in 14th place, but that’s still higher than its grade on most other lists.

After that, the studios offer a number of choices that would boggle the mind of many a critic. On virtually no one else’s top 100 list is “Back to the Future” at No. 12, “The Breakfast Club” at No. 27, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at No. 36 and “When Harry Met Sally” two spots behind “Ferris.”

It’s clear that commercial success is revered just as much, if not more, that critical success by the industry. James Cameron’s two blockbuster hits — 2009′s “Avatar” and 1997′s “Titanic” — rank 67th and 45th, respectively, on the Hollywood Reporter list. The two films are the only ones in the $2 billion club in worldwide receipts, with “Avatar” at $2.8 billion and “Titanic” at $2.2 billion. “Titanic” was 83rd on AFI’s list, but that’s the only mention of either one we can find.

Other curious choices unique only to the Hollywood Reporter list include the 1999 futuristic drama “The Matrix” at No. 44, the 1993 recurring comedy “Groundhog Day” at 63, the little-known 2000 film about the lives of rock stars, “Almost Famous” at 71. There’s also the original “Die Hard” from 1988, which has spawned several critically panned sequels — but it seems the industry doesn’t care much.

One notable trend is that Hollywood appears to be rather parochial when it comes to picking a best-picture list. We count three foreign-language films, and they’re all well down the list: France’s “Amelie” is 60th, Spain’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” is 96th and the Japanese classic “The Seven Samurai” is dead last at 100th. And yes, “Fargo” is 33rd, but the north-Midwest accents don’t count.

The exclusion of foreign-language films may be the most glaring difference in taste between the industry and its critics, but it doesn’t stop there. The industry’s bent is also toward newer films, as 1939′s “Gone With The Wind” is the oldest on the Hollywood Reporter list.

Charlie Chaplin is missing in action, and Humphrey Bogart is nearly forgotten. “Casablanca,” of course, could not be ignored and comes in at No. 6. But forget about “Maltese Falcon,” “The African Queen,” “To Have and Have Not” or “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,”

And the only remnants of the Western come in the form of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” at No. 54 and the spoof “Blazing Saddles” at No. 74, if either of them count. John Wayne? Anyone? Anyone?

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